The Boy With The Books
by Kiro Angel
Summary: The Reader never looks up from his stories except to people watch. The Ice Prince watches from afar behind a mask of taunts. They don't even know each others' names, but somehow they can't keep their eyes away. Drarry, HPDM, no magic AU, one-shot


AN: Welcome to my first Drarry fiction ever completed! Yes, it is AU and I hope that you guys like it. I feel like a bit of a cheat because I basically took me (the reading one) and made it Harry. Which makes him not cannon Harry, but why not, yeh?

I apologize for not getting this up here earlier. I've been getting some lectures for only having it on Wattpad, but I write everything on my phone so it's easier to post using their app. I finally got it up here, so yay!

Anyway, I hope you folks enjoy!  
~Kiro

* * *

Draco snarled to himself, sending a glare punching through the other boy's aura. Of course, the other didn't notice the glare. He never did, just continued to stare at his book, occasionally flipping a page or pushing his black frames glasses up his nose.

Draco wasn't exactly sure why he hated the boy so much, the nameless one who always had a book with him. He read everywhere, every spare moment in class, during breakfast lunch and dinner, and had dark smudges under his eyes from skipping sleep so he could read. Honestly, Draco was skeptical as to why the boy wasn't failing every class. He never talked to anyone. Whenever someone attempted conversation, they would be answered with a grunt, the boy's eyes not even leaving the page.

It was insulting, really, at least that was what Draco told himself. The boy wouldn't even deign to acknowledge the others within his presence. He thought himself so high and mighty, above interaction that all others were obligated to. He had even had the gall to refuse Draco's friendship. He was incredibly egotistical. It was disgusting, really.

That was why Draco was always staring at him. The boy was much too narcissistic for his own good, deserved glares each time Draco saw him in a room or passed him in the hall. He deserved Draco's comments, desperate to do something, /anything/ to make the boy say something to him. It wasn't that Draco so desperately wanted to see if the boy's voice was how Draco had always imagined it. It wasn't that Draco loved to see his face, twisted into that odd half-smile, as if the boy wanted to laugh but thought it was inappropriate to do so at words on a page. It wasn't that Draco lived for that spark of laughter in his emerald eyes, shielded behind his glasses, or that Draco drooled over the messy black waves that ruffled as his reader drew his fingers through them. It wasn't that Draco loved to see how the boy's shoulders trembled in silent laughter, or longed to hear that laughter released from its cage in the boy's ribs. It most definitely was not the pang that Draco felt in his chest when the boy's eyes turned sad, when his mouth curled down at the corners and he wiped furiously at his eyes to clear them and catch the next word. No, it was none of that. Draco hated the boy. That was it.

~~~

Harry loved books. They were an escape, a way to get away from his horrible uncle and the spoiled whale of a cousin. They brought him to places with happy endings and where the problems of his life were solved. Couples lived happily ever after and tears were wiped away by caring hands.

So books were Harry's escape. He could laugh on the inside and weep on the inside over other people's problems. It wasn't exactly that he wanted to turn people away, though he did when they were interrupting a particularly delicious piece of literature. No, it wasn't that he didn't want friends. It was that he couldn't and, even if he could, he didn't know how to.

Dudley had made sure that Harry never had friends. Any people who tried to befriend Harry were exiled, so he kept away from people. Dudley would turn everyone on Harry, call him a freak, faggot, and worse. It only got worse as he read more and more, he was known as the king of social exile. The books he read were poked fun of and he was considered a complete freak for not doing anything normal like talking to people or playing outside. Not that it mattered to Harry, of course. He had his books.

No one noticed Harry, really. After people dismissed him as a nameless weirdo they payed him no heed. He was essentially invisible. So he people watched. He took out his earbuds and listened to their conversations, watching them from behind his books. Sometimes he read, of course,  
and sometimes he watched.

His favorite to watch was the Ice Prince, as Harry had named him in his mind. He didn't know his Prince's name, no, to find out without asking just seemed like cheating and... Well, Harry didn't know how to ask. The Ice Prince's hair was this pale, pale blond, pale as moonlight. His features were sharp and gaunt, his skin light and limbs rangy. He was confident, confidence that Harry wished he had. He ordered people around in a way that made Harry laugh and was incredibly petty. He insulted people sometimes and called them names, but he never really did anything that would hurt people beyond repair.

He looked lonely, really, this Ice Prince. He pretended nothing affected him, but Harry could see that it did. He turned everyone away, isolated himself. But when they looked away and Harry was still watching he could see the emptiness, the longing. Sure, the boy had friends, but they never really cared, asking surface questions.

The Prince never had a girlfriend. He fended off advances from all the members of the feminine population who thought him gorgeous, who even formed a fan club. He used icy wit and chilling glares and made them cry, but they left him alone and loved him from afar. Of course Harry had seen how the gorgeous man, with moonlight hair and features of broken glass, had gazed at men. It was entertaining, almost, to see him defend his masculinity and straight-ness to whoever dared suggest he be anything else. But Harry saw. And Harry wished.

The Ice Prince hated him, Harry was sure. He sent him glares whenever he entered the room. He sneered and delivered nasty comments in an overloud voice. Harry ignored them, of course, continued staring at his book. He knew his Prince didn't mean it. But the boy just continued to try to wind Harry up. Harry knew why, of course, and he almost regretted it.

Back at the beginning of his school career, when he was just a fledgling first year entering Hogwarts Academy for the first time, he wasn't as careful. He talked to people, and they treated him alright. They would later abandon him after Dudley went after them, but that is not the point at the moment. On the very first day, this boy, this Ice Prince, had done two things. He had insulted one of the few people who had been nice to Harry and he had offered Harry friendship. Harry, offended at the boy's treatment of his "friend", had refused. Then the Prince had turned on him. Now here he was, some six years later. He still regretted his choice.

~~~

He was at it again. All Harry wanted to do was sit in the library and read Mercedes Lackey's "Magic's Price" in peace. But then the Ice Prince had to go and look at him with his liquid silver eyes and his perfect mouth drawn into that perfect smirk and make a loud comment on how Harry must "be enjoying the disgustingly emotional gay love story, eh, bookworm?"

Harry let out a sharp, loud bark of a laugh, looking up from the novel. He slid his chair back and, marking his place in the fantasy, walked over to his Ice Prince. It was almost comical the way that the boy's eyes widened and his mouth dropped wide open. Harry smiled widely and stepped up to stop about a foot in front of the other boy's form.

"Oh, yes, I am. In fact, Vanyel reminds me quite a bit of you, Peacock. I quite like peacocks myself, actually, especially of the blonde variety. What do you say, Ice Prince? Want to go out with me?" Harry was stunned by his own boldness, but he really was getting fed up with the other boy's antics. He could only take enough cockiness in one day, and both young Vanyel and his Ice Prince were giving him a headache.

~

His boy, his bookworm, was talking. Not only was he talking, but it was to Draco. He barely got to register this fact and to observe that the voice was even better than he'd imagined it before the last sentence hit him like a brick in the face. The freak, Draco's reader, had just asked Draco out. In the library. In front of numerous witnesses. Draco's head was going to explode.

It took a while for the fact trickled into Draco's brain that he was expected to say something. So he said the first thing in his mind.

"Excuse me, but I hardly think that I bear any resemblance to an albino peacock. Perhaps a dragon. Or a majestic panther."

The boy laughed again and Draco scowled. Had he said something wrong? Had he sounded like an idiot in front of his reader? This couldn't happen. He must be perfect when he talked to his bookworm.

~

After a minute Harry managed to stem his laughter, removing his glasses to wipe at his eyes before replacing them once again on his nose. He almost lost it again when he caught his Prince's very un-princely expression but he managed to get himself under control to explain his laughter. Poor Icey looked like he was going to wither up and die or murder someone if he didn't get an answer.

"Sorry, sorry about that, it was just- of all the responses..." he lost his composure and once again let out a few snickers before pulling together his composure.

"Sorry, but really, a panther? You're quite high-and-mighty already, my Prince, I can't believe what would happen if you were to become actual feline royalty. Anyway, you didn't answer my question. Will you go out with me?"

The Ice Prince looked affronted and, once again, confused. He rapidly firmed his expression, though, into a contemplative sneer and made a show of looking Harry up and down. Harry refused to squirm under the look but only barely managed to do so until the other boy looked Harry in the eyes once again.

"And why, pray tell, should I go out with the resident book worm?" His sneer had regained confidence; he was back in his own territory.  
"Because, oh Prince, I have been watching you in your natural environment. You can't keep your eyes off me, can you? I just figured that if we sat closer to one another it would take a bit of strain off your beautiful eyes."

~

Draco couldn't win. Either he accepted and lost his reputation as the unreachable pretty boy or he refused and lost his one chance with his crush. He was screwed. But he might, just might, be able to salvage the situation. Just a tiny bit, in fact most likely not at all, but Draco had never been particularly rational about the Book Boy. Perhaps...

"If you have been watching me in my natural environment as you say, you should know some things about me. What of a test? You answer my questions and I take you up on your offer, you miss any and I decline. Do you accept my challenge, book boy?"

"Why of course, m'lady." This resulted in a glare from Draco, but the boy was unfazed. With a huff, Draco thought to himself. It would be best to start up with something simple, like...

"What is my favorite food?"

The other boy looked contemplative for a minute, cocking his head and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He really should not have looked that good in ripped hand-me-down jeans and a worn band tee. it was criminal.

"Well you certainly eat bananas with alarming frequency, but I believe that is mostly either a failed attempt to appear seductive or a diet. Really, you love apples and you have an enormous sweet tooth, but try to avoid sugar anyway because you are afraid of gaining weight. Don't be, by the way. I am fairly sure that there is no way to make you not look gorgeous."

Draco blinked. This boy really had been watching him. It was almost creepy in a way, but instead Draco found it to be rather endearing.

"Right. Correct, I suppose, if not a bit unnerving. What about my clothes? Do I have a favorite outfit?" The boy before him cracked a wide smile and shook his head.

"Of course you would ask about clothes. Really, I don't know why I'm surprised. Right, well, you always wear skinny jeans or form-fitting trousers, as well as either a v-neck or button down. Your favorite colors are green and black, but silver goes well with your eyes so you wear that a lot as well. You have a favorite leather jacket and your shoes always look brand new. There is one outfit in particular that is my favorite, that is a plain grey v-neck and studded black belt with black skinny jeans, but you don't wear it that often, instead your favorite is an emerald button-down, sleeves rolled up, and black trousers that you wear on Mondays. Honestly, though, I love everything you wear."

Draco's eye twitched and his eyebrow rose at the lengthy paragraph on his clothing choices. It almost made him want to snog the boy senseless right there in the middle of the library, surrounded by the current shocked and silent audience. Almost.

"Right, then. But anyone could know those things. Those are trivial. What about my life outside of school?" He knew that he had his book boy here. There was no way he could have followed him around outside of school hours to find out about his father, or the... Well he just couldn't have.  
The boy's eyes took on a sad glint as he looked down at Draco. He seemed to be debating with himself about something. He suddenly nodded to himself, satisfied with his conclusion. Soon, he spoke.

"Well I haven't had much of a chance to follow you around after school, but I do know some things. You flinch whenever the ex-special forces teacher, Merrick, raises his voice and you always wear your leather jacket the entire day for days after your soccer team loses a game, sometimes even when they don't. You have a 4.5 GPA and are always extra sour before a test. You didn't come to school for two days when the soccer team lost the biggest game of the season last year, and when you came back you had a limp. You always look impeccable and have the most expensive things available. I am sure that I could say more but I doubt that would be the best idea in front of others."

Draco felt drained all of the sudden. Yes, he remembered last year. He was captain of the soccer team and yet he lost them the biggest game of the season. His father had beaten him so bad that Draco couldn't walk for a day and when he came back he had a limp and bruises. And his reader knew. He knew. He knew Draco's shame and how he couldn't fight it. He knew how all he wanted was his father's approval but his father wanted a perfect son. He knew. Draco lowered his head in shame.

"Hey, hey, none of that. I'm perfectly fine with you wearing a favorite jacket on a bad day or skipping class to have a good time to cheer you up. I myself have skipped probably five times last semester." The tone for this last sentence was bitter, regretful, sad, and made Draco's heart stop.  
Draco lifted his head to see that his boy was smiling at him. As if his boy being beaten were supposed to cheer Draco up. He supposed it was a good thing that they were not alone, otherwise Draco might have shaken the boy until he got his address then headed to beat his abuser himself. As it was the dragon's eyes blazed with rage.

The boy's face fell at Draco's anger, so Draco took care to calm his visage into a cool smile. It was show time. He couldn't do anything now, so he would wait. Right now he had an audience to impress.

~~~

Harry knew he had gone too far when he saw his Prince's expression drop. He cast around for something to say, anything to say that he wasn't alone. Something to fix the situation. And so that others wouldn't catch on to the situation. Abuse was an ugly thing, and they didn't need it made worse by having a rich madman and an angry walrus on the loose looking for their sons to beat.

So he did some damage control, implied it was no better for him. And watched as the Ice Prince became consumed with white-hot rage. Fuck. Not what he wanted, not what he wanted at all.

But then the raging teen's expression cooled, and the Prince rose from his chair.

"It seems you have passed the test, oh Golden Boy. Wilst thou be my princess?"

"Why of course, oh Ice Prince."

~~~

It was a month before they worked up the courage to ask each other their names. Everyone else thought that they really loved pet names, but after that they never called each other anything else. They were Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, but they would always remember their Ice Prince and Book Worm.


End file.
